Teamwork Quotations

Being a consistent winner in the game of basketball or in life is largely dependent upon teamwork and not on the individual talents of any one person.

You must be able to work with those around you to achieve a common goal.

Now this is the law of the jungle, as old and as true as the sky. The wolf that should keep it should prosper, but the wolf that should break it must die. For the strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack.

— Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Jungle Book’

The challenge of every team is to build a feeling of oneness, of dependence on one another because the question is usually not how well each person performs, but how well they work together.

— Vince Lombardi

Remember the banana — when it left the bunch, it got skinned.

When a gifted team dedicates itself to unselfish trust and combines instinct with boldness and effort–it is ready to climb.

— Pat Riley

Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is a success.

— Henry Ford

We must all hang together, else we shall all hang separately.

— Benjamin Franklin

If a team is to reach its potential, each player must be willing to subordinate his personal goals to the good of the team.

— Bud Wilkinson

It’s not my job to look good. It’s my job to make other people look good.

— Wes Unseld

Our goal is not to win. It’s to play together and play hard. Then, winning takes care of itself.

— Mike Krzyzewski

The best method of overcoming obstacles is the team method.

— General Colin Powell

One finger can’t lift a pebble.

— Hopi Tribal saying

Quality is everyone’s responsibility.

— W. Edwards Deming

One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team.

— Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

The secret of winning football games is working more as a team, less as individuals. I play not my 11 best, but my best 11.

— Knute Rockne

Individual commitment to a group effort — that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.

— Vince Lombardi

Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishment toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.

— Andrew Carnegie

When a team outgrows individual performance and learns team confidence, excellence becomes a reality.

— Joe Paterno

The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.

— Babe Ruth

No one can whistle a symphony. It takes an orchestra to play it.

— H.E. Luccock

People have been known to achieve more as a result of working with others than against them.

— Dr. Allan Fromme

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

I’ve always found that the speed of the boss is the speed of the team.

— Lee A. Iacocca

The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say ‘I’. And that’s not because they have trained themselves not to say ‘I’. They don’t think ‘I’. They think ‘we’; they think ‘team’. They understand their job is to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don’t sidestep it, but “we” gets the credit…. This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.

— Peter Drucker

Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.

— Helen Keller

Finding good players is easy. Getting them to play as a team is another story.

— Casey Stengel

Many of us are more capable than some of us… but none of us is as capable as all of us!

— Tom Wilson

The achievements of an organization are the results of the combined effort of each individual.

— Vince Lombardi

I was taught that the name on the front of your jersey was a lot more important than the name on the back.

— Ryne Sandberg

Individuals play the game, but teams beat the odds.

— Navy SEAL Team Saying

In order to become a leading home run hitter, a batter must be surrounded by good hitters, otherwise, the pitchers will ‘pitch around’ him. Likewise, many successful people became that way from being on a good team.

— Laing Burns Jr.

It’s easy to figure out who isn’t a team player. They’ll constantly remind the coach just how good they are.

— Brian G. Jett

All the successful teams I’ve ever seen have three characteristics: They play unselfish, they play together, and they play hard.

— Larry Brown

Individuals don’t win. Teams do.

— Sam Walton

Snowflakes are one of nature’s most fragile things, but just look at what they can do when they stick together.

— Vesta Kelly

Hard work and togetherness. They go hand in hand. You need the hard work because it’s such a tough atmosphere … to win week in and week out. You need togetherness because you don’t always win, and you gotta hang tough together.

— Tony Dungy

The greatest emphasis should be made from the very beginning on the importance of team play. A team that plays harmoniously will be stronger than a team composed of brilliant individual players who are each eager to do all the playing.

— Senda Berenson

Good teams become great ones when the members trust each other enough to surrender the ‘me’ for the ‘we’.

— Phil Jackson

There are plenty of teams in every sport that have great players and never win titles. Most of the time, those players aren’t willing to sacrifice for the greater good of the team. The funny thing is, in the end, their unwillingness to sacrifice only makes individual goals more difficult to achieve. One thing I believe to the fullest is that if you think and achieve as a team, the individual accolades will take care of themselves. Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.

— Michael Jordan

The best teams have chemistry. They communicate with each other and they sacrifice personal glory for a common goal.

— Dave DeBusschere

Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.

— Michael Jordan

Some people believe you win with your five best players, but I found out that you win with the five who fit together best.

— Red Auerbach

Great teamwork is the only way we create the breakthroughs that define our careers.

— Pat Riley

Teamwork is really a form of trust. It’s what happens when you surrender the mistaken idea that you can go it alone and realize that you won’t achieve your individual goals without the support of your colleagues.

— Pat Summitt

Teams that play together beat those with superior players who play more as individuals.

— Jack Ramsay

Basketball, more than any other sport, is a team game…about the thousands of small, unselfish acts, the sacrifices on the part of the players that result in team building.

— Dean Smith

Winning teams at the NBA level, the college level, and the high school level all play team basketball. Championship teams have five players on the same page at all times.

— Hubie Brown

Basketball is a beautiful game when the five players on the court play with one heartbeat.